Author. 




Title 



aa8s.LBM.5„. 



Imprint 



10—36299-1 GPO 



®l)e iSibIc, tl)c Hoi, anb Religion, in j 
Common Scl)oob. 

THE ARK OF GOD 0^^ A NEW CART: 

A SERMON. BY REV. M. HALE /SMITM. 



Bfl1t«^^ 



REVIEW OF THE SERMON, 

BY WM. B. FOWLE, PtTBLISHER OF THE MASS. COMMOX SCHOOT. JOUUNAr-. 



STRICTURES 

ON THE 

SECTARIAN CHARACTER OF THE COMMON SCHOOL JOURNAL 

BY A MEMBER OF THE MASS. BOARD OF EDUCATION. 



CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN THE 

HON. HORACE MANN, SEC. OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION, 

AND 

REV. MATTHEW HALE SMITH. 



BOSTON: 

REDDING & CO., 8 STATE STREET. 

18 4 7. 



ai)c Bible, H]c iloi), aub Ucligion, in 
Gammon Scljools. 

THE ARK OF GOD 0^ A NEW CART: 

A SERMON, BY REV. M. HALE SMITH. 



A REVIEW OF THE SERMON, 

SY WM. B. FGWLE, BUBLISHER OF THE MASS. COMMON SCHOOL JOURNAL. 



STRICTURES 

ON THE 

SECTARIAN CHARACTER OF THE COMMON SCHOOL JOURNAL, 

BY A MEMBER OF THE MASS. BOARD OF EDUCATION. 



CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN THE 

HON. HORACE MANxN, SEC. OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION, 

AND 

REV. MATTHEW HALE SMITH. 



BOSTON: 

REDDING & CO., 8 STATE STREET. 

1847. 



TO THE READER. 



I have been unexpectedly called to a discussion of the subject 
matter of this pamphlet. I have been publicly, repeatedly, and 
officially assailed, on account of some positions I have Bssiimed ia 
relation to religion and irreligion in common schools. Those who 
complain, speak, as the reader will perceive, in their own words. 
I make such defence as I think the occasion demands. I leave the 
matter to the judgment of those who have great interest in the right 
teaching of the young — ^ the Christians and patriots of the Com- 
raonwealth. M. H. S, 



THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND RELIGION, 



IN 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 



Prom the Boston Rbcordee, Oct. 15, 1846. 

THE ARK OF GOD ON A NEW CART. 

[The following discourse contains an expose of the present moral con- 
dition of this city. Some may think that it presents too dark a picture, 
but the question is, "is it true.'" Let any one go through our city and 
see our gambling establishments, grogshops, theatres. Sabbath desecration, 
courtsof justice, jails and penitentiaries, and he will not doubt the cor- 
rectness of these statements. In view of all this, the question that presses 
itself upon the conscience of every good citizen is. What can be done 
to stay the further progress of this plague .'' 

This sermon was called out by a public meeting held in Faneuil Hall, 
to consider the morals of Boston. The crowd upon its first delivery was 
80 great that a large number were unable to gain admittance. At the 
earnest request of many, it was repeated to a large congregation last Sab- 
bath morning. — Eds.] 
I 



O THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

Increase OF Intemperance. Crime and Juvenile Depravity — 
Its cause and cure. A Sermon preached before the Church 
and Society of the Pilgrims, in Boston, Oct. 10, 1846. 



BY MATTHEW HALE SMITH. 



II. Sam. vi : 3. "And they set the ark of God upon a new cart." 

King David sent chosen men to bring the ark of God from its 
resting place to Hebron. Positive legislation had been given by 
Jehovah in respect to the removal of that symbol of his presence. 
Uzzah and his associates took counsel of their own wisdom, and re- 
solved to do the work of God in their own way. The ark was put 
upon a new cart, instead of being borne on the shoulders of the 
priests of God. On its passage, the ark jostled ; Uzzah reached 
forth his hand to keep it steady. God smote him because he violat- 
ed positive law, and he died before the ark. His motive may 
have been good, but a right thing must not be done in a 
WRONG WAY. So this history, so all experience, teach. 

All men are sinners ; the results of a depraved nature are daily 
developed. To purify men, to roll back the flood of guilt, to ele- 
vate our race, has been the desire of many hearts. Some lean upon 
Divine Wisdom ; many philanthropists lean on their own, and in their 
opmion, superior wisdom. Much has been attempted during the past 
twelve years, and little done. Indeed, society is-— like the woman 
in the gospel who, after a sickness of twelve years, had spent all her 
living, — "no better, but rather the worse." The increase of 
crime, of all forms and degrees, is apparent and alarming. 

L Crime is on the increase. 

1. This is seen in Sabbath desecration. It is more bold ; in it 
there is more of defiance than usual. You see this in the open 
shops ; in the exhibition of statuary, falsely called religious ; in Sab- 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 7 

bath newspapers, thrown with great impertinence into the doors of 
Christian people upon the Sabbath. You see it in the very tone of 
those presses which are professedly the guardians of the morals of 
the city. One paper at least, started and sustained on moral 
grounds, pledged to oppose theatres and support the observance of 
the Sabbath,'has so far presumed upon such a change in public sen- 
timent, as to advertise theatres, w^hich in the opinion of many are 
cause and effect of crime, and has also commended t^iis recently 
established Sabbath newspaper without one word of rebuke. 

2. It is seen in the increase of intemperance. Places for the 
manufacture of drunkenness increase. The business is more open- 
ly conducted, and in defiance of law. Bands of nfiusic are among 
other attractions to call multitudes to those avenues of hell. The 
records of our courts prove that intemperance increases. Pledged 
men relapse. The pledge seems to have lost its power. Years of 
toil and sacrifice are lost. And the burning, fiery flood seems to 
have broken its bounds, and is with fearful surges gaining upon us 
every hour. 

3. Depraved men were never bolder than now. Our judges, 
who are not alarmists, who are not orthodox, say so. Murders, 
robberies, housebreaking, are deeds of daily occurrence. Highway 
robbery in the streets of Boston at 10 and 11 o'clock at night, is 
not uncommon. Few feel safe ; few leave their homes at dark 
without some fear. 

4. Boys and youth are increasing in boldness aad crime. This 
is one of the most startling developements of this age. A large 
proportion of our criminals are boys, lads and youth. They steal, 
they rob, they burn, they kill. It has been officially announced that 
the House of Correction is full. Soon the same will be said of the 
State's Prison. Such is the true state of the case;. We ought to 
look at it as it actually is. 

II. The Cause. 

Many attribute all this evil to rumselling. I do not. I believe if 
all rumselling to-day was checked by a stringent law, the depravity 
that now abounds would find another outlet. The cause lies back 



8 



THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 



of that ; it sustains that. The boldness and success of that business, 
finds a support in the same causes which increase crime. 

1. Whj does intemperance increase. I answer. Temperance 
has been divorced from religion, and has lost its power. It has been 
made the handmaid of impiety. In the house of its friend it has 
been wounded. The tree has been girdled by those who have sat 
under its shade. At the door of professed friends, much of this 
evil will be found. The cause of temperance in this country began 
in principle and in the fear of God. While God was acknowledged, 
wonders were wrought. The cup was banished, and habits and 
customs, riveted by years, gave way in a day. But the cause has 
changed hands, and its tone and temper have gradually but surely 
changed. Old friends and tried have been pushed back ; and by 
insolence, censoriousness and denunciation, they have been assured 
that they were no longer needed in the field. Under the plea of 
no sectarianism, a Universalist preacher would be allowed to go the 
whole length of his creed, and tell all that lie helieved about the 
evils of drunkenness; while another man that believed more than 
he, who believed that the drunkard would go to hell, would be cut 
short in his speech, because he was sectarian. I have known a 
speaker called to order, in a so-called temperance meeting, because 
he repeated the text, " No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of 
God." Temperance has been identified with Sabbath desecration. 
Washingtonianism has been called Christianity, and said to be gos- 
pel enough for men. It has been substituted for the preaching of 
Jesus Christ upon the Sabbath. Crowds have been collected upon 
church steps during divine service, and gatherings held in the streets 
and on the wharves, during the hours of public worship. Meetings 
are held on Sabbath evening on the principle of a shilling theatre, 
to which admittance is gained at 12 1-2 cents per head, to hear 
glees, jokes and noise. 

The cause has been divorced from religion ; and yet the leaders 
of this movement affect to be surprised that clergymen and churches 
stand aloof from the present organization. At a public meeting 
in Faneuil Hall last week, a public rebuke was administered to the 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS, 9 

clergy of the city, for their want of boldness. But do these men 
suppose that the friend of religion will endorse this yoking of tem- 
perance and impiety together? and that when the alternative is, 
intemperance or Sabbath desecration, they will hesitate one moment 
which to choose ? Intemperance destroys the man ; Sabbath dese- 
cration the nation. These people need not be told that we are unwil- 
ling to help cast out one devil, if the only thing to be gained is the 
introduction of seven others more wicked than he. 

It is not true that the many stand back, who once were active, be- 
cause they are afraid of their popularity. The ministry and the 
church, in the infancy of the cause, before public favor was secured, 
when there was something to be afraid of, when some sacrifice and 
toil were necessary, were not afraid to speak and suffer for humani- 
ty. Nor do I believe the love of gain lies at the basis of this un- 
willingness to act. That men will sell rum while it is profitable so 
to do, I have no doubt. But it is not true of the citizens of Boston, 
that they love gain more than principle. Let them know what hu- 
manity demands, and they will respond to that demand. The spirit 
of Hancock yet lives. When it became necessary to burn Boston, 
as it was thought, to save the country, Hancock assured his friends 
that such an act would leave him in poverty. But, said he, if the 
country demand the sacrifice, let the torch be applied. To other 
causes you must look. 

You must divorce the temperance movement from impiety. It 
must cease to be a platform on which reckless persons can insult 
religious institutions ; and cease to be an engine by which evil men 
can assail the good. You must come back to principle. Till then, 
temperance must languish ; intemperance triumph. There is not 
moral power enough in evil men to sustain a good cause. Satan 
cannot cast out devils. 

2. Why does crime increase ? I reply, the harvest has come. 
The seed was sown long since ; the fruit is legitimate : it was pre- 
dicted and expected. For some years there has been a growing 
sympathy with crime, and crime has kept pace with it. We live in 
an age in which that sympathy is organized to stand between the 
1* 



10 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

villain and his punishment. The fruit of this sympathy is seen all 
around us. We have a pale, gaunt, sickly humanity. It liovers 
over the cells of the infamous. A moderate criminal enjoys but 
little of its favor; but one of the desperate class will be deluged 
with it. It will be in waiting for him at his cell before he enters it; 
in the court it will, if possible, hinder the process of justice. The 
poor, the deceased, the victim, are forgotten. But the vile are 
cared for. Men who were never visited in their innocence, become 
martyrs in their guilt. Let blood be upon their hands, and they 
will lack neither society nor sympathy. Bad men know this. They 
know how hard it is to get convicted ; how easy it is to obtain a par- 
don. Thus law is weakened. Its execution is difficult. Restraint 
is lifted up. Crime is encouraged. If a man kill his wife, his 
brother, or his mistress, he is in little danger. It will be proved 
that he had a sudden fit of insanity ; or, if that be too stale, a sudden 
fit of somnambulism. He will be let loose to seek another victim. 
We shall soon have among us a paradise for rogues ; desperate men 
will be invited to our homes, with ample assurance of sympathy and 
protection from such philanthropists. Soon men will be compelled 
to wear arms, to protect themselves ; this they will do, if law does 
not protect them. At the door of this non-resistance, no capital 
punishment, no Sabbath, no ministry, no church, no law philanthro- 
py, sickly and miserable as it is, lies this increase of crime, so ap- 
parent, so awful. A man in New Hampshire under sentence of 
death, admitted that when he committed murder he believed that 
capital punishment was abolished ! 

3. Cause of juvenile depravity. The root of much of this evil 
is found in the absence of good home instruction ; and in the attempt 
made by those who have influence over the young, to mend the le- 
gislation of God. Modern reformers have taken the education of 
youth under their special care. Men, wise above that which is writ- 
ten, have made common schools the theatre of their experiments and 
labors. The end is worthy of the toil. Throwing themselves 
across the word of God. they practically oppose its lessons. They 
deny the propriety of an early religious training ; they ridicule, as 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 11 

Well as forbid, the use of the rod. They would take the Bible away 
from our youth, save such portions as they may think proper to 
place in their hands. 

An effort has been made, and that too with some success, to do 
three things with our common schools. 1. To get out of them the 
Bible and all religious instruction. 2. To abolish the use of the 
rod, and all correction, but a little talk. 3. To make common 
schools a counterpoise to religious instruction at home and in Sab* 
bath schools. The Board of Education in Massachusetts has aided 
in this work in two ways. 1. By allowing an individual, under the 
sanction of its authority, to disseminate through the land crude and 
destructive principles, principles believed to be at war with the Bi- 
ble and with the best interests of the young for time and eternityi 
2. By a library which excludes books as sectarian that inculcate 
truths, which nine-tenths of professed Christians of all names helievei 
while it accepts others that inculcate the most deadly heresy — even 
universal salvation. We ask not that religion shall be sustained by 
law ; but we do ask that impiety and irreligion shall not be support- 
ed by the state. When religious and intellectual culture are divorc* 
ed, is it strange that we have a harvest of crime.' When, under 
the sanction of the highest powers, punishments are ridiculed as 
well as denounced, is it strange that the arm of parental authority 
is weakened, and the master finds his law without a penalty ? Is it 
strange that our juvenile courtesy, is of that Doric sort which ex- 
presses itself in "Yes and No," "I will and I won't.'" Is it 
strange that we have such a harvest of rebellion and crime ? One 
of the reformers of this day said in a lecture in New York, that he 
had no hope of the clergy, none of the church ; but his hope was in 
the lyceum and the common school. Before the lyceum last winter, 
in this city, a course of atheistical lectures were given. We see 
what is to be done with the schools, and what the hope is. Soon Chris* 
tians will have to consider the question, whether a mere intellectual 
education with no moral basis is worth the having.' Already the 
question has been before the Presbyterian church of the United 
States, whether the time has not come when they must establish 



12 THE BIBLE, THE ROB, AKD 

schools of their own, in which moral training shall be blended with 
intellectual, and the Bible be allowed in schools. 

From causes such as I have named, has this harvest of crime 
sprung up. And while we boast of our common schools as the 
glory of our land, let us beware that they do not become our shame. 
Even now, in our best schools in this city, insubordination and licen- 
tiousness abound. They are developed in the circulation of obscene 
French prints in school, and in the efforts of girls in school to cor* 
rupt their associates. The boys and girls, some of them, have a 
room in this city, furnished with all that panders to base and wicked 
passions, where youth of both sexes, belonging to public schools, 
assemble at night. We shall see more developements ; fruit will 
fellow such labors, that tears of blood and years of toil will not re* 
move. No effort Is now^ spared to corrupt our youth. Base women, 
as they trade in stores, boldly thrust their cards of invitation into 
the hands of young men, and personally invite them to walk with 
them the road to hell. 

Christians have a work to do in New England, as well as in Italy 
and the West. If New England is not kept sound, the hope of the 
world is gone. Men may be frightened at the moral condition of 
society, and hold mass meetings for months to give utterance to their 
fears ; they may fill Faneuil Hall with resolutions, still intempe- 
rance and crime will continue to grow upon us, till religion and prin* 
ciple, as given in the word of God, shall guide moral movements 
and direct their aim. 

I speak for no one but myself I am no one's organ. But I 
know I speak the sentiments of thousands in our city and country. 
Let us try our ways, and turn to the Lord. 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 13 



Review of the Sermon, in the Boston Cocjrier, Oct. 27, 1846. 



BY WM. B. FOWLE, 

Publisher of the Massachusetts " Common School Journal.'' 



[I owe an apology to (hose into whose hands this pamphlet may fall, for 
permitting so foul a production to soil its pages. But as it is the only 
Review I have seen, — and coming from the Publisher of the Common 
School Journal, the co-associate in that paper, with the Hon. Secretary of 
the Board, it seems fitting that this semi-official Review should follow the 
Sermon. It answers another end. Its author is identified with the "Reform 
party," as it is called ; he has been years connected with efforts to make com- 
mon schools what they ought to be ; his style and language show what 
the intercourse between gentlemen will be when all the children of the 
State shall reach the elevation on which he stands. I have spoken in 
my. Sermon of a peculiar sort of courtesy, that is growing up in schools. 1 
offer the subjoined as a specimen of that courtesy which is more t)oric than 
decent.] 



THE REV. MATTHEW HALE SMITH. 

to the editor of the courier: 

The last Boston Recorder contains a sermon by the person whose 
name is placed at the head of these remarks. The text is — "^nd 
they set the ark of God upon a new cart.'''' [II Sam., vi, 3.) 

We have rarely read such a tissue of impudence and ignorance, 
as this reverend preacher has woven into what he calls a sermon. 
He maintains, in the first place, that all that has been done to reform 
society in the last twelve years, has made society " no better, but 
rather the worse." Crime, he says, is on the increase — and this 



14 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

is seen in desecration of the Sabbath, in the increase of intennpe- 
rance, in the boldness of offenders, and in the increasing propor- 
tion of young criminals. Now it seems to us that the man who 
asserts that the world, on the whole, is growing worse, must be a 
knave, or an idiot, or both. If our common schools, and our Sun- 
day schools, our churches, and our revivals, our Bible societies, and 
missionaries, our charitable institutions, and our benevolent societies, 
do not enable the world " to hold its own," then Christianity is a 
farce, and the Rev. Mr. Smith, being one of the actors, is a knave 
for endeavoring to keep it up. On the other hand, if millions have 
been redeemed from the destroyer by Father Matthew and his fel- 
low laborers here and elsewhere ; if crime rarely escapes undiscov- 
ered and unpunished ; if even half that we are told of the blessed 
effect of missions and of Sunday schools is true ; if such sermons 
as this of the preacher are considered more suitable exercises for a 
Sabbath evening, than a lecture on temperance, which he con- 
demns — and yet the reverend preacher does not know this — then 
he is a very ignorant man. When our Savior was asked to rebuke 
certain, who cast out devils in his name, but were not his dis- 
ciples, he refused to do so, on the ground that those who co-ope- 
rated with him must be let alone, if not encouraged. But the rev- 
erend preacher, speaking of the Washingtonians, says they cast out 
one devil, to introduce seven others more wicked ; and all these 
seven are the desecration of the Sabbath by holding temperance 
meetings on Sunday evening, and nothing more. He wishes the tem- 
perance movement to go back where it was before the Washingtoni- 
ans took hold, viz., into the hands of the clergy, whom he would have 
us consider the ark of God, not to be touched. And yet, who does 
not know that this ark cried out for help, and called and welcomed 
the Washingtonians to the rescue ? If there was any crime in put- 
ting the ark into " the new cart," the preacher is the Abinadab, and 
before we have done with his sermon, we may show that he, and not 
the ark, should have had the ride in a cart. 

The reverend reviler calls upon the Prison Discipline Society, the 
abolition of capital punishmenters, and all others who would ameli- 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 15 

orate the criminal code of our State, and make it one degree milder 
than that of the Hebrews, although by that, if we mistake not, a 
renegade was to be stoned. We know not why a professed preach- 
er of the gospel of peace and good will to men, should be so blood- 
thirsty, and so determined to have life for life, and eye for eye, 
but we are compelled to believe that it arises from a want of that 
change of heart, without which the spirit of Christ cannot be dis- 
cerned. The reverend preacher, if half is true that is said of him, 
has met with changes enough in veering from the east to the west 
end of doctrines, but it is evident that change of opinion is not 
change of heart. 

After despatching the philanthropic societies above mentioned, 
the modern Uzzah pounces upon the Board of Education, the ma- 
jority of whom are, and always have been, not only orthodox men, 
but distinguished as leaders and lights among the evangelical sects. 
The assault upon the common or public schools of Boston, and upon 
the Board of Education, is, if possible, more outrageous than that 
upon the Washingtonians, the benevolent societies, and missionaries, 
and we must look at it a little more in detail, for if a tythe of the 
charges be true, the schools ought to be abolished at once. 

The preacher objects to all attempts to improve the discipline 
that has prevailed in our schools, and calls it " mending the legisla- 
tion of God." " Throwing themselves," says he, " across the word 
of God, they practically oppose its lessons ; they deny the proprie- 
ty of any early religious training ; they ridicule as well as forbid 
the use of the rod ; they would take the Bible away from our youth." 
We have a right to demand of the preacher. Who does this ? — 
Who denies the authority of the word of God ? Who denies the 
propriety of early religious training. Who but the Romanists would 
take the Bible away from our youth ? The connection in which 
these charges are made, shows very plainly that the alleged culprits 
are the Board of Education. We will give the whole tirade, that 
the malignity and falsehood of the preacher may be distinctly seen : 

" An effort has been made, and that too with some success, to do three 
things with our common schools. 1. To get out of them the Bible and all 



16 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

religious instruction. 2. To abolish the use of the rod, and all correction, 
but a little talk. 3. To make common schools a counterpoise to religious 
instruction at home and in Sabbath schools. The Board of Education in 
Massachusetts has aided in this work in two ways. 1. By allowing an in- 
dividual, under the sanction of its authority, to disseminate through the 
land crude and destructive principles, principles believed to be at war with 
the Bible and with the best interests of the young for time and eternity. 
2. By a library which excludes books as sectarian that inculcate truths, 
which nine-tenths of professing Christians of all names believe, while it 
accepts others that inculcate the most deadly heresy — even universal sal- 
vation. We ask not that religion shall be sustained by law ; but we do 
ask that impiety and irreligion shall not be supported by the state. When 
religious and intellectual culture are divorced, is it strange that we have 
a harvest of crime ? When, under the sanction of the highest powers, 
punishments are ridiculed as well as denounced, is it strange that the arm 
of parental authority is weakened, and the master finds his law without a 
penalty .' Is it strange that our juvenile courtesy is of that Doric sort, 
which expresses itself in 'Yes and No,' '1 will and I won't.'' Is it 
strange that we have such a harvest of rebellion and crime -' One of the 
reformers of this day said in a lecture in New York, that he had no hope 
of the clergy, none of the church ; but his hope was in the lyceum and the 
common school. Before the lyceum last winter, in this city, a course of 
atheistical lectures were given. We see what is to be done with the 
schools, and what the hope is. Soon Christians will have to consider the 
question, whether a mere intellectual education, with no moral basis, is 
worth the having.'' Already the question has been before the Presbyterian 
church of the United States, whether the time has not come when they 
must establish schools of their own, in which moral training shall be 
blended with intellectual, and the Bible be allowed in schools." 

Now be it remembered that the Board of Education is composed 
of the Governor, who is a communicant of an Orthodox Baptist 
church ; of Professor Sears, the distinguished head of the Orthodox 
Baptist College at Newton ; of Dr. Humphrey, late President of the 
Orthodox College at Amherst; of the Rev. H. B. Hooker, an 
Orthodox Congregational minister, of whom Falmouth has reason to 
be proud ; of the Lieutenant Governor, and the Hon. Wm. G. Bates, 
who are members of Orthodox congregations, and, for aught we 
know, of Orthodox churches ; of J. W. James, Esq., who, we be- 
lieve, is an Episcopalian; of the Hon. Stephen C. Phillips, who, 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 17 

though a Unitarian, is one of the warmest champions of the Sunday 
School ; and finally, of the Rev. E. H. Chapin, who is distinguished 
among the se.:t that his reverend reviler so lately deserted, not only 
for his talents, but for the earnestness with which he addresses the 
souls of men. Let the character and standing of these men, who 
constitute the Board of Education, be remembered ; and then put 
on your spectacles and look at him who wrote and preached the 
sermon from which the above extract was taken. 

Perhaps it would be enough to leave the matter here — but as the 
public are not fully acquainted with the facts, it may be well to ad- 
vert to them, to expose the barefaced ness of the charges. First, 
then, the Board have never said a word against the use of the Bibl 
in schools, but on the contrary, have required it to be used in the 
only schools under their control, viz. — the Normal Schools. If it 
has been excluded from the public schools, the blame must rest with 
School Committees, and not with the Board, whose power does not 
extend to school books. But the fact is, the Bible is probably read 
daily in every public school in the State, and it is required to be 
read in the schools of this city. Secondly, the Board have always 
and every where strenuously urged the importance of early religious 
instruction — and, if the preacher does not know this, he is ignorant 
beyond excuse, and if he does know it, he is wicked beyond pardon. 
Let him read the ninth report of the Secretary of the Board, which 
was published last winter under the sanction of the Board and of 
the Legislature, if he wishes to read his own condemnation. 

Secondly, the Board, nehher themselves nor by their Secretary, 
have ever recommended the entire disuse of the rod ; the utmost 
they have done is to not recommend the dbxise of it. We assert 
this boldly, and challenge the preacher to show the contrary, if he 
can. Thirdly, the Board have never attempted "to make the com- 
mon schools a counterpoise to religious instruction at home and in 
Sabbath schools." By this the reviler probably means, that the Board 
have endeavored, in the public schools, to erase all the good impres- 
sions that may have been made in the Sunday schools. If so, who 
have been the agents of the Board } In this city more than half the 
2 



18 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

teachers are Orthodox professors, and those who are not, are friends 
of the Sunday school, and by no means disposed to carry out this or 
any other plan of the Board or their Secretary, Out of the city, we 
believe, and we have the means of forming a very accurate esti- 
mate, that more than nineteen-twentieths of the public teachers are 
either Orthodox Christians, or nominally Orthodox, and under the 
direction of Orthodox Committees, usually containing one or more 
Orthodox clergymen. Is it at all likely, is it possible for the Board 
or their Secretary to carry out any such design, if it were possible 
for such a Board ever to have "conceived it ? 

But the Board have recommended a library which, we are told, 
" excludes, as sectarian, books that inculcate truths, which nine^ 
tenths of professing Christians of all sects believe, while it accepts oth- 
ers that inculcate the most deadly heresy — even universal salvation." 
We deny that any such heretical book is included among those recom- 
mended by the Board ; but, if it were true, who does not see that 
such books must have been inadvertently omitted, for there never 
was but one Universalist on the Board, and he was not appointed 
until some years after the library was published. Nothing can be more 
amusing than this display of a weakness common to changelings* 
The reverend preacher has hardly left the Universalists, but he i& 
not ashamed to denounce their chief doctrine as " the most deadly 
heresy." We know of but one changeling that is a match for him, 
and Mr. Brownson would denounce Mr. Smith, as Mr. Smith, if he 
walks much further in the steps of his father, will denounce those 
with whom he is now trying his fortune. 

The unfairness of the preacher, as well as his grosser falsehood, 
is displayed in what he says of a lecturer in New York, and of an» 
other before the Boston Lyceum. These are mentioned as if they 
were under the control of the Board of Education, and as if they 
were connected with the city schools, for, says the preacher, imme- 
diately after mentioning them, " We see what is to be done with the 
schools, and what the hope is." He then goes on to say what must 
astonish the citizens of Boston, and compel the school committee 
instantly to call on him to prove, that it may be corrected, or to die- 



EELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 19 

avow, that the fair fame of the Boston schools may not be blasted. 
Where are tlie thirty-one who flew at their best friend, the Secretary 
of the Board, for not alluding to them or their schools in his report, 
while they are quiet under such charges as the following : — 

" From causes such as I have named, has tliis harvest of crime sprung up. 
And while we boast of our common schools as the glory of our land, let 
us beware that they do not become our shame. Even now, in our best 
schools in this city, insubordination and licentiousness abound. They are 
developed in the circulation of obscene French prints in school, and in the 
efforts of girls in school to corrupt their associates. The boys and girls, 
some of them, have a room in this city, furnished with all that panders to 
base and wicked passions, where youth of both sexes, belonging to public 
schools, assemble at night. We shall see more developments ; fruit will 
follow such labors, that tears of blood and years of toil will not remove." 

The preacher assures us that Uzzah was struck dead because 
" hz endeavored to do a right thing in a wrong waTj."" If, then, all 
the modern plans for teaching and improving mankind are the new 
cart in which men are carrying the Ark of God, is it not the case 
that the preacher, pretending to fear for the safety of the Ark, has 
laid his unhallowed hand upon it, has traduced men better than him- 
self, has attempted to do, not a right, but a wrong thing in a wrong 
way, and stands self-condemned before the public whom he has at- 
tempted to deceive ? 

Allow me, Mr. Editor, one line more, in which to express my 
surprise that the senior editor of the Recorder should have allowed 
such wholesale calumny a place in his paper, and that twenty-four 
hours should have elapsed before he, or somebody else, should have 
declared, as I now do, that the sermon, from beginning to end, is 
a falsehood, which, if we believed in the utility of capital punish- 
ment, we should say, entitles the preacher to a ride in a cart tha\ 
would leave him standing, as his whole sermon stands, on — nothing. 

Teemont. 



20 the bible, the rod, and 

Reply, in the Boston Courier, Oct. 29, 1846, 

TO THE editor OF THE COURIER : 

I am indebted to the courtesy of a friend for a copy of the Cou- 
rier of tills morning. I find myself assailed, in no gentle terms, by 
one, who, though unsparing in his epithets, chooses to intrench him- 
self behind a fictitious name. It affords me sincere regret that my 
sermon does not commend itself to the fastidious taste of " Tremont." 
So far from this, he calls it " a tissue of impudence and ignorance," 
delivered by " a knave or idiot, or both." He calls me " a rever- 
end reviler," " a renegade," and " blood-thirsty." My sermon, he 
says, " displays the weakness common to changelings," and in it, I am 
" guilty of unfairness as well as gross falsehood." He closes with the 
very comfortable assurance that " the ser7non,fro7n leginning to end, 
is a JaJsehood'''' — "it stands on nothing." The writer is certainly 
an adept at calling hard names : he is very familiar with a vocabu- 
lary that gentlemen seldom use. But why waste so much warmth, 
intellect and ink, upon such an afl^air ? Whom can it harm .' who 
can be benefitted by such a review 1 He has devoted a column to 
review what he calls " nothing," or, at best, a production false, all 
of it, in all things. Is the intelligence of Boston in danger.'' Can 
it not discern between idiocy and intellect.? Or does the writer 
stand upon an elevation so precarious that 

" Tales told by an idiot " 

can shake him down ? I shall defend no positions I affirm, at the 
call of an anonymous writer. If " Tremont" will publish his name^ 
and give assurances that he will observe the courtesies of life, and 
use language such as gentlemen are expected to employ, I may an- 
swer his queries, and, if need be, defend my positions. The whole 
review itself is worthy of no attention. The very respectable me- 
dium that my assailant has chosen for his assault, is all that entitles 
it to even this passing notice. 

Very truly, your obedient servant, 

M. HALE SMITH. 
Boylston street, 42, Oct. 27, 1846. 



religion, in common schools. 21 

Strictures on the Sectarian Character of the Combion School 
Journal, Edited by the Hon. Horace Mann, By a membeb 
OF THE Board of Education. 

From the N. E. Puritan, Oct. 29, 1846. 

THE COMMON SCHOOL JOURNAL. 

In the last numbci' of the " Common School Journal," printed in 
Boston, and designed for universal circulation throughout the Com- 
monwealth, I find this sentence, p. 316 — " Almost all children are 
as pure as Eve icas ; hut the templing apples are left hanging so 
thickly around, that it would he a marvel if they did not eaty 

This is from the pen of Dr. Howe, Principal of the Institution 
for the instruction of the Blind, in South Boston, and is found in his 
special report to the Trustees, upon the case of Laura Bridgman, 
copied into the Journal as above. In casting my eye over the sen- 
tence, my first inquiry was. How came it here ? It would have 
been no matter of surprise to have found the sentiment, that " almost 
all children are as pure as Eve was," in the Christian Register, or 
Examiner, for they are the professed exponents and defenders of 
what is called Liberal Christianity. But what right has the Common 
School Journal, which goes indiscriminately into Unitarian and Or- 
thodox families, of all denominations, in the State, to put forth a 
theological dogma, which the Editor must know is rejected by the 
great body of Christians in Massachusetts ; or, indeed, to introduce 
any controverted theological point at all ? The understanding, I 
take to be, on all sides, that in order to act harmoniously together, 
in furthering the great cause of popular education, we must keep 
our denominational creeds and differences out of sight. 

Suppose that we, who believe in the entire corruption of human 
nature since the fall, had the command of the Common School Jour- 
nal, and were to introduce an article, asserting, among other things, 
hat children were all horn in sin, and depraved from the birth ; 
would not the Unitarians complain, and have a right to complain, of 
the offensive obtrusion ^ Would they not protest against our smug* 
3* 



22 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

gling our Calvinism into a journal which they patronize and help to 
circulate ? And may they take liberties which we should have no 
right to expect they would concede to us ? 

Let us look at the objectionable sentiment again. "Almost all 
children are as pure as Eve was ; but the tempting apples are left 
hanging so thick around them that it would be a marvel if they did 
not eat." If this is not a mere rhetorical flourish, if it means any- 
thing, it entirely denies the doctrine of the Fall^ as it has been un- 
derstood in all ages, at least so far as the majority of the race are 
concerned. So far from being born in sin, they are perfectly pure, 
and are put upon their probation just as Eve was. " The tempting 
apples hang thick around them." If they pluck and eat, they fall 
in exactly the same sense that she did ; if they resist the temptation, 
they remain pure and holy, just as she would have done had she not 
put forth her hand to the forbidden fruit: — so that, instead of there 
having been one great original apostacy, involving the whole race of 
man in guilt and ruin, there are just as many apostacies, precisely 
like that of our first parents, as there are children who, overcome 
by temptation, transgress the laws of their Creator. 

"Almost all children are as pure as Eve was I " Then they have 
a moral character ; they are perfectly holy as she was, till they fall 
from their " original righteousness," as she did. It is not our hap- 
piness to have any such children as these ; and we do not wish to 
have Dr. Howe, or any other religionist of the same school, come 
mto our families, by the aid of the Common School Journal, and tell 
them they are or ever were " as pure as Eve was." We do not 
believe it. We have not so read our Bibles. We believe with 
Paul, that " they are by nature children of wrath, even as others ; " 
and that however young they may die, they must be renewed by 
the Holy Spirit and washed in the blood of Christ, or they cannot 
be saved. This is our honest belief; but we would not obtrude it 
upon our friends of an opposite faith, through a common vehicle 
of popular education, if we could. When such sectarianism as we 
have exposed, finds its way into a periodical which is intended for 
general circulation, it ought to be promptly protested against. 

Watchman, 



BELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 23 



CORRESP ONDEN C E 



BETWEEN THE 



HON. HORACE MANN AND REV. MATTHEW HALE SMITH, 

OCCASIONED BY THE SERMON ENTITLED "THE ARK OF GOD 
ON A NEW CART." 



LETTER TO MR. SMITH. 

Boston, Oct. 19, 1846. 

Rev. M. H. Smith. 
Dear Sir : — 

I have just seen, in a copy of the Boston Recorder of the 15th 
inst., what purports to be a report of a sermon twice delivered by 
you in this city. 

As the Massachusetts Board of Education, as well as myself, per" 
sonally, are deeply inculpated by that report, I trust you will not 
think the inquiry obtrusive, whether that part of it which comes un- 
der the third division, and is entitled, " Cause of Juvenile Deprav- 
ity," is a correct representation of what you said ? 

It is there alleged that you charged the Board of Education with 
aiding in an effort " to get the Bible and all religious instruction" out 
of our common schools. I shall be slow to believe that you ever 
made this charge ; for it is well known to every person who has 
had the honesty to ascertain the facts on the subject, to be wholly 



^ THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

untrue^ The whole influence of the Board of Education, from the 
day of its organization to the present time, has been to promote and 
encourage, and, whenever they have had any power, as in the case 
of the Normal Schools, to direct the daily use of the Bible in school* 

I could hardly believe that any one would venture upon that grave 
charge, without having read the reports of the Board ; and yet it is 
much harder to believe that any one would dare to make it who had 
t-ead them. As an exposition of the views and counsels of the 
Board, on this subject, I send you a copy of their eighth Report, 
made two years ago, which I request you to read. 

So efficient have been the efforts of the Board to get the Bible 
into the common schools, — instead of out of them, as the report 
affirms — that, when I last made the inquiry, I found that the Bible 
was used in the schools in all the towns in the State, excepting three ; 
and those three towns returned no answer to the inquiry. It mighty 
therefore, be used in those three towns also. 

In the second place, the Board has never done any thing " to aboh 
ish the use of the rod in schools, or all correction, but a little talk.'* 
On the contrary, it has always upheld and defended the use of the 
rod, when other measures of restraint had been tried and failed, 
They go cordially, and, as I believe, unanimously, against those 
enormous abuses of the rod, which have been perpetrated by incom« 
petence and bad passions. But on all occasions, they have upheld 
the doctrine of authority and good order in school, and so much of 
punishment, as, with other and higher influences, might be necessary 
to maintain them. 

I do not understand what is meant under the third specification, 
about the Common Schools being a counterpoise to religious instruc 
tion, &c. ; and though this expression is found in very bad company^ 
I will not impute it to a bad purpose, until I know better what it was 
intended to imply. 

In describing the manner in which the Board is said to have aided 
in this work, there is an unequivocal reference to myself. I am re- 
ferred to as having disseminated "through the Board, crude and 
destructive principles," &c. 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 25 

Will you be so good as to inform me what those " crude and de- 
structive principles " are, and what your proofs are that I have diS' 
seminated such 7 for if this be the fact, no person is so much interested 
to recall them, and I assure you that no person can be more ready 
to do so than I shall be. I cannot acknowledge my hope and trust 
in truth to be second to yours, or that of any other person. 

In the second place, it is affirmed that the Board have accepted, 
as a part of their Library, books " that inculcate the most deadly 
heresy, even universal salvation." May I ask you to tell me what 
those books are .'' 

As I have an extraordinary pressure of engagements, at the pres- 
ent time, I pass by other points, suggested by the report referred to. 
To those above enumerated, I feel that I have a right to call your 
attention. I wish to do it in a candid and courteous manner. Your 
character, not for common intelligence, merely, but for truth, stands 
implicated by the statements made in the Recorder ; and it is due to 
the Board of Education, to myself and to yourself, that the charges 
there made should be either substantiated or withdrawn. 
Very respectfully, 

Yours, &c., HORACE MANN. 



REPLY. 

To THE Hon. Horace Mann. 
Dear Sir — 
1 embrace the earliest opportunity to reply at length to your letter 
of the 19th inst. The report of my sermon in the Recorder, to 
which you refer, is correct. A large part of your letter is occupied 
in setting forth what the Board of Education have attempted to do. 
I can believe they have attempted to do all this, and yet aid indi- 
rectly and even unconsciously, in all I have said. I was careful to 
specify the exact thing in which, in my opinion, its influence was 
not directed to the best results. The Board is a public Institute^ 



26 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

Its acts are open to review, and if need be, to rebuke, as much so as 
the Legislature that appoints it. It occupies an important field. Its 
influence must be very good, or very bad. Its effect upon the young 
is powerful. The system of measures it adopts must be felt for 
ages to come. The Board has not secured the entire approbation of 
the community. The discussions in the Legislature and the remarks 
in public prints, religious and secular, prove this. I believe our 
common schools would be better without the supervision or the laws 
of the Board. I can indulge in this opinion without impeaching the 
moral or the religious character of that body. But this is foreign to 
my purpose. The subject of your letter calls me to consider the 
relation of the Board to yourself, and to the common school library. 
In relation to yourself — with your private views, I have nothing 
to do. I accede to you the right which 1 claim for myself. I speak 
of you only as a public man. Your views and opinions on Educa- 
tion exert an influence, in my opinion, not salutary, and they get 
their power from your official position. I was familiar with the or- 
ganization of the Board — of the part you bore in the Legislature in 
making the laws which now you execute. I have read your jour- 
nals and your reports — have heard you lecture and have met you in 
conventions. 1. I regard you as the representative of a system, or its 
head, which seeks to change, slowly, perhaps, but surely, tlie whole 
system of education in common schools — the result of which will 
be to elevate the intellectual over the moral, and man above God. 
jn detail and in element I conceive your notions, in this matter, to 
be crude, their fruits destructive ; and the more I have seen your 
system explained, the worse, to my mind, it appears. 2. I under- 
stand you to be opposed to the use of the Bible in school as a school 
book. I mean the lohole Bible ; the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, 
the New Testament. I suppose you to be willing that parts shall be 
read. But are you in favor of the w/w?e Bible as a school book.'' 
3. Are you in favor of the use of the rod as a principal means of 
enforcing obedience } That you tolerate it in deference to public 
sentiment, I do not dispute. But I am misinformed if you. are not 
against its use, and do not, as you have opportunity, discountenance 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS, 2? 

its use. 4. I understand you to be opposed to religious instruction 
jn schools ; that you rule out as far as you have power truths and 
sanctions which nine tenths of professing Christians believe essential 
to sound morals and an honest life, no less than to the salvation of 
^he soul. If you are in favor of religious instruction in schools, will 
you please state what you mean by that term, 'and what you recom. 
mend to be taught .'' ' I believe you hold such opinions as I have 
alluded to. I regard the position and the authority with which you 
are clothed as giving you great power to work disaster and ruin to 
many who come under your influence. Those who clothe you with 
power aid you in all the work you do. You may suppose that in all 
this work you are serving well your country. I may entertain a dif-- 
ferent opinion. 

In relation to the Library. In its moral and religious reading the 
library is calculated to exert an evil influence. It calls that religious 
which I do not. It furnishes Sabbath reading that few Christians 
would be willing to place in the hands of their children on the Sab- 
bath. It rests its morality on an insecure basis, and leaves it without 
% true sanctions. All that savors of evangelical truth is carefully 
removed — sentiments abound which no evangelical Christian can 
sanction. And in a volume edited by the late Dr. Greenwood of 
this city, who was a Restorationist, you find that idea plainly asserted. 
My attention was first called to it by a preacher of Universalism.* 

You express a wish to call my attention to this subject, " in a can- 
did and courteous manner." I suppose gentlemen never conduct 
^heir correspondence in any other way. 
Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

M. HALE SMITH. 

Boston, Oct. 27, 1846. ) 

Boylston St., No. 42. j 



* Tlie Life of Rev. David Brainard, edited liy Mr. Peabody, of Springfield, hue 
been so clianj^ed by its editor as to make it a different tini g from that whicli raine 
from tile pen of President Edwards, while it goe« down to posterity as the veritable 
work of Edwards, endorsed by the Mags. Board of Education. 



»8 THE BIBLE, THE HOD, AND 

LETTER TO MR. SMITH. 

West Newton, Nov. 9th, 1846. 

Rev. M. H. Smith. 
Dear Sir : — 

I have just returned, after an almost continuous absence of six 
weeks, during which time I have been attending Teacher's Insti* 
tutes, in different parts of the CommonweaUh. Yours of the 27th 
ult., reached me about a week since, (together with your note ac- 
knowledging the receipt of mine of the 19th Oct.,) but until now, 
I have not had a minute to spare to answer it. 

In your letter you acknowledge the report of your sermon, as 
found in the Recorder, to be correct. It is true, then, that you 
made a series of direct, unqualified charges, against the Board of 
Education and myself, — publicly, — in a sermon, — on the Sabbath, 
— and that after a report of that sermon furnished by yourself or by 
some one else, had appeared in a newspaper, you declare it to be a 
" correct " report. Permit me to say, that this introduces us to 
very grave and serious matters. If the Board of Education and 
myself are guilty of the offences you allege, we must expect no 
stinted measure of public reprobation ; if we are not, then all that 
reprobation, and more, belongs of right to you. 

Your acknowledgement of the correctness of the Recorder's re- 
port, establishes my right to demand that the charges therein made 
should be either substantiated or withdrawn. I have looked in vain 
through your letter, to find either any proof of their truth, or any 
reparation for their injury. On the contrary, without a tittle of evi- 
dence, you reiterate the charges, and in some respects, present 
them in an aggravated form. I feel bound to examine a few of the 
points made in your reply. 

You say, " A large portion of your letter is occupied in setting 
forth what the Board of Education has attempted to do." A repe- 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 



29 



rusal of my letter will show this to be erroneous. You have sub- 
stituted an attempt, for a result. A portion of my letter was occu- 
pied in setting forth, — not what the Board had attempted to do, in 
regard to introducing the Bible into our schools, — but what it had 
actually done. 

Your letter evades the point made in your sermon. The sermon 
declared that the Board had aided to get the Bible out of our 
schools. It averred, further, that the effort to do so had been made 
" with some success," which is directly contrary to the fact, because, 
from the official reports and letters of the school-committees, it ap- 
pears that the Bible was never so extensively used in our schools as 
at the present time, and that its use has been constantly increasing, 
ever since the influence of the Board was brought to bear upon the 
subject. But you say the Board may have " indirectly and even un- 
consciously aided" in producing such a result. How can the Board 
have aided in producing a result which does not exist ? At the time 
of the organization of the Board, there was a number of towns in 
which the Bible was excluded from the schools, — the one in which 
you then resided, being, if I do not mistake, one of them. All, or 
at the most, all but two or three, have since introduced it. Your 
main position, therefore, fails you. The Board has not "aided" in 
any such work as you assert, for no such work has been done. You 
say, " 1 can believe they [ the Board] have attempted " to get the 
Bible into the schools. After reading the Eighth Annual Report, 
how can you believe any thing else .' Do you not know from the 
language of that Report, as well as from the characters of the men 
who signed it, that they are as sincere in their efforts for this object, 
as any man or body of men in the community .'' If any officer of 
theirs was counteracting their efforts, would they not know it as soon 
as yourself.-* 

Is there any possibility that one could counteract their efforts, and 
not have that counteraction known .' And, still further, if the Board 
are earnestly and honestly striving for this object, why did you not 
give them credit, at least for sincerity, in your discourse ? Even in 
aondemning the wrongful act of an upright, but a deluded man, 
3 



30 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

common justice demands that we should concede to him the credit 
of good intentions. This your sermon did not do. 

" I was careful," say you, " to specify the exact things in which, 
in my opinion, its influence [the influence of the Board,] was not 
directed to the best result." This statement is highly erroneous. 
You said nothing in your sermon about their influence not being di- 
rected " to the best result." You charged them with aiding in pro- 
ducing the worst results. The Board may not have produced the 
best possible results, and it would not be discreditable to them if 
they had not done so, but they may still have produced results high- 
ly salutary and beneficent. But you charged them with helping to 
produce results, which you knew your hearers would consider 
the most mischievous and fatal. It is impossible for any honest 
man to overlook the distinction between saying, that a man may 
not have promoted the best end, and that he lias promoted the 
worst. Your letter has not noticed the distinction. 

You proceed to say that " the Board is a public institution," and 
that " its acts are open to review, and if need be, to rebuke." No 
member of the Board, nor any person in their behalf, so far as I 
know, has ever questioned the right of the public to scrutinize their 
proceedings. But while the right of scrutiny is conceded to the 
public, the Board, on its part, has a right to impartiality and justice 
in the decisions that are pronounced upon it, and to truth in the evi- 
dence that is brought against it. Its amenability to public opinion, 
gives no license to misrepresentation. 

You go on to afllirm that " the Board has not secured the entire 
approbation of the community." Did you ever know a body of 
public men, whose duties afTected various and conflicting interests, 
who had the fortune to be universally approved ? Do you offer it 
as an impeachment either of the integrity or of the wisdom of the 
Board, that, amid all hostile parties and sects, they have failed to 
obtain "an entire approbation.^" And if you cite against the 
Board, the occasional opposition they have encountered, does not 
common justice require you to add that they have come triumphant 
out of every trial to which they have been subjected ; that every at- 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 



tack made upon them, has only hastened the progress of the meas- 
ures they have recommended ; that in no instance have they ever 
been required, either by the Legislature of the State, or by the law 
of public opinion, to retrace a single step they had taken ! 

The ground you have taken, in reference to what you said against 
me, seems not to be less obnoxious to just censure. Your sermon 
contained assertions highly injurious to me, and calculated, wherever 
you were entitled to credit, or wherever you could inspire suspicion, 
to injure my reputation and impair my influence. As I had a right 
to do, I asked you for the proofs of these assertions. And what is 
your reply .^ Not a syllable even pretending to be proof; but a 
new series of charges or insinuations, as devoid of truth as the 
original ones. Whose character is safe, if, when arraigned and 
falsely accused, the calumniator adduces no proof, but only fabri- 
cates new accusations ? What sense of justice can be left in the 
mind of a man, who indulges himself in holding a fellow-citizen up 
to odium, but acknowledges no obligation to prove his words, or to 
recall them ? "I understand you," say you, " to be opposed to the 
use of the Bible in schools, as a school book." I reply to this, 
that you do not understand so on any competent authority. My 
writings abound in proofs that this is not true ; and if you had used 
ny diligence in searching for the truth, you would have found it 
.). " But," say you, catechisingly, " are you in favor of the whole 
Bible, as a school book ? " Is this, sir, your whole sense of jus- 
tice ? Do you feel at liberty to accuse at random, and when call- 
ed upon for proof, to ask the accused himself, if your false allega- 
tion be not true .-* Such is the course you have taken. You 
averred that an effort has been made, " with some success," to get 
the Bible out of the Common Schools, and that the Board of Edu- 
cation had aided in this work, by allowing an individual, under the 
sanction of its authority, to disseminate through the land " princi- 
ples believed to be at war with the Bible," &c. I called upon you 
for proof or retraction. Instead of either, you turn upon me, and 
say, " But are you in favor of the whole Bible, as a school book ? " 
Did you. Sir, ask this question, because you did not know, and if 



32 THE BIBLE, THE ROB, AND 

you did not know, why did you assert 1 In the first place, let me 
say, you are entitled to no arlswer to such a question. It would ex- 
tirpate all justice from the affairs of men, if such a course of pro- 
ceeding were sanctioned. In the second place, I say that if you 
have read my writings, (and you had no right to pronounce public- 
ly upon my opinions, without reading them,) — if you have read 
my writinys, you know that I have said, without qualification, with- 
out exception, and in so many words, that it is my belief that the 
Bible makes known to us the rule of life, and the means of salva- 
tion, and that it is my wish [I have no authority in the matter] that 
it should continue to be used in our schools. The very Journals 
which I sent you prove the same thing. You adopt the same un- 
warrantable course in regard to the next point. You ask, " Are 
you in favor of the use of the rod, as a principle means of enforc- 
ing obedience .? " (I follow your orthography in this quotation.) — 
While I protest against your right to accuse, and then, after the 
manner of the inquisition, to put me to the question,' in order to ob- 
tain evidence, I will reply. In the above interrogatory, you have 
evidently made some mistake, either in spelling, or in omitting some 
words essential to the sense ; because, as it stands, it is sheer non- 
sense. By your words " a principle means," do you mean a prin- 
cipal means ; or do you mean " a7i authorized or acknotoledged prin- 
ciple in the means.'''' If you mean to inquire whether I am in favor 
of using the rod as the principal, the main, the chief, or the most 
important means of enforcing obedience, I answer decidedly in the 
negative. I would not use it as the principal, but as an auxiliary, 
or supplementary means only ; — not primarily, but when other 
means had been tried and had failed. If, on the other hand, you 
mean to ask, whether I consider the use of the rod, after all higher 
motives have been exhausted, as an authorized and acknowledged 
" principle," in enforcing obedience, I answer you in the affirma- 
tive. It would, however, better express my own views to say, that 
I should make it a " principle " to secure obedience ; and after try- 
ing in vain the highest persuasives to good and dissuasives from evil, 
I should then make it equally a " principle " to use the rod. If, as 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 33 

you say, you have heard me lecture, and read my reports, &;c., then 
you have had the means of knowing that the above is a true repre- 
sentation of the doctrines I have always advocated, in reference to 
the use of the rod. 

Again you say, " I understand you to be opposed to religious in- 
struction in schools." To this I say, as I said before, you do not 
understand so on any competent authority ; and if you had examined 
the proper sources of information, you would have "understood" 
precisely the reverse. Every one who has availed himself of the 
means of arriving at the truth, on this point, knows that I am in fa- 
vor of religious instruction in our schools, to the extremest verge to 
which it can be carried without invading those rights of conscience 
which are established by the laws of God, and guarantied to us by 
the Constitution of the State. 

As to the Library, your sermon declared that the Board of Edu- 
cation accepts, as a part of it, books " that inculcate the most deadly 
heresy, even universal salvation." I asked you to tell me what those 
books are. Justice and honor require you to do it, or to take back 
the assertion in as public a manner as it was made. Why, then, do 
you not name the books? Copies of the library are every where 
accessible. Mine is at your service. On a point of this kind, is 
any reasonable man to be satisfied with any thing less than a citation 
of the " books " and the passages. Again I say, prove your charge, 
or withdraw it, or ask no man hereafter to believe you. 

You aver that " all that savors of evangelical truth is carefully re- 
moved " from the library. What a sentence is this against evangeli- 
cal doctrines or sentiments ! Read the library. Ponder upon all 
the glorious, divine. Christian truths which it contains — its advocacy 
of the Bible as the word of God, its recognition of Christ as the 
Savior of the world, its earnest enforcement of the great principles 
which are declared to contain the whole duty of man — and then 
declare that all this does not even savor of evangelical religion. What, 
then, must " evangelical religion " be .'' 

Once more. In a note, you say, " The Life of Rev. David Brain- 
ard, edited by Mr. Peabody, of Springfield, has been so changed 
3* 



34 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

by its editor as to make it a very different thing from that which 
came from the pen of President Edwards, while it goes down to pos- 
terity as the veritable work of Edwards, endorsed by the Mass. 
Board of Education." Now, nothing can be more untrue than all 
this. The work does not go down to posterity as " the veritable 
work of Edwards." It does not claim to be " the work of Ed- 
wards " anymore than Washington Irving's Columbus, which consti- 
tutes the first volume of the library, claims to be the veritable work 
of Robertson. Mr. Peabody's " Life of David Brainard " is as dis- 
tinct a work from the " Account of the Life of David Brainard " by 
Edwards, as Sparks's Life of Washington is from Marshall's Life of 
Washington. It so appears on the title page, and in the preface to 
the book. — See School Library, Vol. 4, pp. 77-79. 

Mr. Peabody's Life of Brainard was written without any com- 
munication with the Board. I am not positive about the date, but 
believe it was written years before the existence of the Board, — 
certainly long before that body ever entertained the project of pre" 
paring a library for schools. The Board found this work in exist- 
ence, — for sale at all the book-stores, and considered as one of the 
standard works of the age. They thought it w^ould be a useful 
work for the young, because of the fervid religious character and 
benevolence of its subject ; and they adopted it as they would adopt 
any other valuable work. But they never pretended that it was the 
" veritable work of Edwards ; " and no man who has thought it to 
be his duty to inform himself on this subject, ever supposed it to be 
so. 

Thus, sir, I have reviewed the principal points in your letter, and 
have shown, as I believe, that it meets neither of the points to which 
you were bound, — proof or withdrawal. I entreat you to reconsider 
the subject. If, from inadvertence, from want of information, or 
from any other cause, you have been led to do injustice to the Board 
of Education and to myself, and to wrong a great and sacred cause, 
have the religion, have the Christianity, at least, have the worldly 
magnanimity and honor, to make redress. 
Very truly. 

Yours, &c., HORACE MANN. 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 35 



REPLY. 

To THE Hon. Horace Mann. 
Dear Sir : 

I give the first leisure at my disposal, to reply to your letter of the 
9th of November. Before I notice those things to which you call 
my attention, I wish to call yours to two things. 1st. There are ex- 
pressions and epithets, in your letter, which imply a wilful ignorance 
on my part, where I ought to know ; or an inability to weigh evi- 
dence, and appreciate facts. You say, " It is impossible for any 
honest mind lo overlook " what I am charged with overlooking — 
" Authority to review and rebuke," your remark " gives no li- 
cense to misrepresentation." Certain things will be done by a man, 
who would " be thought entitled to credit." You ask, " What sewse 
of justice can be left in the mind of a man" who does what you 
affirm I have done. " Any reasonable man " will see things as you 
see them. And conclusions to which I have come, you are confi- 
dent could be reached by " no man, who has thought it his duty to 
inform himself." 

Such expressions are in bad taste. They are not essential to the 
argument, and had better be omitted. I shall treat you as a gentle- 
man, for 1 believe you to be one. No one has a higher respect for 
your zeal, industry, and talents. But the system you defend, I consid- 
er wrong in principle, and destructive in results. Your commanding 
official position, the tone of authority with which you speak upon all 
matters relating to common schools, gives you great power. Gen- 
erations to come are to feel that power. Temporal and immortal 
interests are to be affected by your labors. 2d. You make my al- 
lusions to you in your official capacity, a matter personal to your- 
self. You say I have held you up to odium. You apply to me the 
epithet of " calumniator." It is not obvious to my mind that the 
personal influence of any man is harmed by calling in question the 
soundness or good results of certain measures with which he may 



36 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

officially, be identified. You are the Agent of the Board of Edu- 
cation. You say you do their pleasure, and execute their com- 
mands. To question the wisdom of the one, or the good result of 
the other, can no more affect you, than can the recording of cer- 
tain acts of the Legislature impair the personal standing of ihe Sec- 
retary of State, who records them. 



THE ACCUSATION. 

In defending those parts- of my sermon to which you call my at- 
tention, I shall defend what I have said, and only that. I do not 
feel under obligation to vindicate any application you may choose to 
make, or inferences you may draw. For any misinterpretation or 
misapplication, I am in no way responsible. What, then, have I 
said ? This : The Massachusetts Board of Education have aided 
in an effort to get the Bible out of Common Schools — to get out 
the rod and all correction, but a little talk — and also to get religion 
out of school. It has done so in two ways. First, by throwing the 
pall of its authority over your system and acts ; second, by a part of 
the library that goes out under its sanction. I have said so much : 
so much shall I defend. You call upon me for " proof or with- 
drawal." With the proof in my possession that led me to make the 
assertion at first, withdrawal is out of the question. To specimens 
of my proof I will now call your attention. I shall assume two 
points. First, you are sustained by the Board of Education ; 
second, that Board endorses its library. The last I shall prove. 



YOUR INFLUENCE IS AGAINST THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 

You may introduce the Bible into every school in the State, yet 
if it goes in any other light than the Inspired Word of God — the 
rule of faith and duty — a Book "able to make men wise unto sal- 
vation" — a Book full of inspired maxims, sustained by sanctions 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 37 

S^iven by its author — if its binding force is thrown ofi' or inipaired, 
your influence is against the Book — it ceases to bo the Bible, as 
Christians cherish it — its moral power is gone. If it be introduced 
into our schools, as a Book inspired in part — a Book containing 
some very good things, and some things not as good — if those who 
introduce it, do so with reservations or implications that it lacks in- 
spiration — their influence is against tlie Bible : those who endorse 
them, aid in all the influence they exert. 

I proposed to you the question, whether you were in favor of the 
whole Bible in schools, as a school hook. You decline to answer 
me. You impeach my sense of justice in asking the question. You 
affirm, thai to reply, would " extirpate all sense of justice from the 
affairs of men." How, then, could you reply to my second ques- 
tion } or does the extirpation of justice only follow from a reply to 
questions of a particular character? I cannot perceive how the 
fact that you answer my second question, and the reason you give 
for not replying to my first and third, can be reconciled. A simple 
affirmative answer to my query would have made my work, per- 
haps, more arduous than at present I conceive it to be. Your re- 
fusal to say that you are in favor of the whole Bible, as a school 
book, is significant. You are confident that I have obtained my in- 
formation " from no competent authority " that you are not favorable 
to the whole Bible in schools. That remains to be seen. You have 
no where in your public writings said that you were. You will not 
say so much to me. You have said the contrary. And if your 
own voluntary testimony is to be taken, you do not believe the whole 
Bible to be the inspired Word of God. 

In the New England Puritan, published in this city, of December 
11, 1845, an article was published, giving an account of the State 
Convention of Teachers, in VVorcester, Mass. Some allusions were 
made in that article to yourself, as the head of a system which was 
to exert a disastrous influence upon the young. You felt aggrieved, 
and called upon the Rev. J. E. Woodbridge, the resident editor, 
and asked him to do you justice. You held a long conversation, to 
show Mr. Woodbridge that you were misunderstood. You gave 



38 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

your views upon the Bible, the rod, and religious instruction in 
schools. In that interview, you admitted that you did not believe 
the whole Bihle to he the inspired Word of God — that parts were 
not proper to be read in school. The editor could make no cor- 
rection, for you acknowledged the truth of, at least, a part. 

The man who rejects a part of the Bible, must, in my opinion, 
reject the whole. It claims entire inspiration. If it be not so in- 
spired, it is not true. " All Scripture is given by the inspiration of 
God, and is pro^iaWe for doctrine ; * * for instruction in right- 
eousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly 
furnished unto all good works." — II. Tim iii. 16, 17. " For the 
prophecy came not in old time by the will of man — but holy men 
of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." — II. Peter, 
i., 21. It was the Old Testament that Timothy read, when a 
child, that was "able to make him wise unto salvation." Such 
declarations are false, if the Bible be inspired only in part — be not 
fit for our children. These " Holy Scriptures," which made young 
Timothy " wise unto salvation," cannot do harm to American youth. 
The Divine Redeemer said to the Jews, " Had ye believed Moses, 
ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me." By a parity of 
reasoning, we may say. Had ye believed Christ, ye would have 
believed Moses, for Christ spake of liim. 

You inform me in your letter, that I cannot prove this or that 
from your writings. In your letter, you demand that I shall sustain 
what I have said, from what you have written. It may be difficult 
for me to do so, for you may hold certain opinions that you do not 
choose to print. But is this proof that you do not hold them, or 
that they are not destructive ? I must be allowed to prove my 
position by calling to the stand such proof as I may think proper. 
If the Bible, entire, open, without omission or expurgation, be not 
the inspired word of God, infallible in all matters of faith and duty, 
what do we want of it in schools, or any where else ? How can 
you be in favor of it as a school book ? For what is it essential, if 
it sink to a level with human composition at best, while its worst 
aspect is, that it claims to a distinction and authority, to which it is 



RELIGION IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 39 

not entitled in truth ? Officially you recommend it, but with that, 
goes out the fact, that its claims to inspiration, in the opinion of the 
Secretary, are not to be conceded — for they are not founded in 
truth. What is the Bible worth if it have no authority ? You 
throw aside as obsolete, the system of education it originates, Avhy 
not the source from whence that system sprung ? You aim to 
improve Common Schools, why not begin at the fount ? If not 
inspired, what advantage has Moses over Dr. Howe — Solomon 
over W. B. Fowie — or Paul over yourself .? Why may not the 
substitute be fairly made ? Indeed, it is so, as far as the School 
Journal of Massachusetts is concerned. 

I believe you to be honest in your views, therefore you can have 
no very strong motive to throw the affections of children around 
the Bible. No plan can so effectually get the Bible, ultimately, 
out of Common Schools, as that which rejects a part as not true, 
and another part as not fit to be read. The bitterest enemy the 
Bible ever had, could do no more — would ask no more — than this. 
You condemn the Bible out of its own mouth. Those who believe 
and so teach, are displacing the Bible for human codes of ethics. 
All who authorize and endorse such influence, aid in all the evil 
that is done, though they command a thousand copies per day to be 
introduced into public Schools. I here leave my first proposition. 



YOUR INFLUENCE IS AGAINST THE ROD IN SCHOOLS. 

You have said that I have either misunderstood your views on 
corporal punishment, or " have not thought it my duty to inform my- 
self." You have so charged almost every person who has contro- 
verted your positions. 1. You have said something upon this subject. 
Your words are, " at different times in my reports, lectures, and other 
writings, 1 have dealt, at some length, on the subject of ' School 
Discipline,' and have been led to consider more particularly one of 
its instrumentalities, namely, corporal punishment. [Reply to 
Boston Masters, 119.] 2. No one has understood you, as far as I 
can learn, to advocate, or be in favor of the use of the rod [^ 



40 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

Common Schools, as that phrase is commonly understood. The 
man is yet to speak, who has so understood you ; the paragraph 
is yet to be written, that so asserts. Almost all classes, all sorts 
of people, all denominations, religious papers of every name, as- 
cribe to you hostility to the rod. 3. The impression is almost 
universal, from what you have published, that you desire and seek 
to abolish the use of the rod, and all correction, but a little talk. 
The unanimity of] opinion, if erroneous, is perfectly marvellous. 
So thought the Boston 'Masters. Else why address to you an ar- 
gument of 24 pages in defence of the rod .'' So have thought the 
Editors of the Episcopal Witness, the New England Puritan, and 
the Recorder. No man, whose writings I have read, is better 
capable of making himself understood, than yourself. Yet, ac- 
cording to your complaints, almost every man has misunderstood 
you upon the subject of corporal punishment. You mean one 
thing; your language and your speech conveys another thing. 
4. If you defend any thing, say any thing, it is in favor of the abo- 
lition of crporal punishment. If you aim at any thing, it is this. 
You do allow the use of the rod from necessity. But it is not the 
necessity that springs from the nature of the child, but from the 
incompetency of the master. You say you have only in a few in- 
stances secured teachers who can govern without it. Your own 
words are, " the great desiratum is, \ojind teachers who can govern 
without resorting to p/t?/sicaZ ^orce. If this is not done, or cannot 
be done, then the next step is to prepare such teachers as fast as the 
time will allow." [Common School Journal, Vol. viii: 67.] Those 
who use the rod and contend for its necessity, you hold up as adopt- 
ing " the terrible motto. Authority, Force, Fear, Pain." [Reply, Bos- 
ton Masters, 132.] You quote and endorse the sentiment that the rod 
would never be needed, if right instruction were given to a child. 
[Reply, 139.] You estimate the ability and fitness of a teacher, 
by his capacity to govern without punishment. [Fifth Annnal Re- 
port, 58.] You say " the use of the rod in school, is twice cursed, 
cursing him that gives, and him that takes, — nay, three times 
cursed." Masters who use the rod, you designate as " consenting 
to turn flagelators to the parish ; " and you affirm that it is a 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 41 

greater evil to keep boys ia subjection by the terror of the rod, 
than to turn them loose into the streets. [Common School Journal, 
Vol. III. : 153, 154.] In your Eighth Annual Report, which you have 
kindly sent to me, with the request that I would read it, I find in 
almost every instance, in the school returns, in which any thing is 
said against the use of the rod, or the ability to govern without it 
for a season, the fact has a conspicuous place in the Report, — 
published in capitals or italics. You further say that when the 
right kind of teachers shall be secured, the rod, or corporal punish- 
ment will come into " total disuse." [Re-Reply, Boston Masters, 12.] 

You inform me that the Board of Education has control over 
Normal Schools in this State. What is the system in those schools 
on corporal punishment ? Mr. Pierce, the head of the West 
Newton Normal School, as quoted in the " Remarks of Boston Mas- 
ters," [p. 13,] says : " I would state, that my theory goes to the 
entire exclusion of the premium and emulation system, and of corpo- 
ral punishment.'''' Dr. Howe is in raptures with the system on which 
the Normal School is based, " because it rejects all appeals to bod- 
ily fears, and all appeal to selfish feelings." [Common School Jour- 
nal, Vol. II., 238.] 

Already five hundred teachers, with these views, and pledged to this 
system, have gone out to teach ; others, you say, are to be multiplied 
"as fast as time will allow." When none but teachers so trained 
shall be in common schools, the day whose dawn you perceive wilt 
appear, and the " total disuse " of the rod will take place. 

In view of all this, will you say that no " effort has been made to 
get the rod out of schools ? " Will you say that there is no settled 
purpose to do this. You inform me that you are opposed to the 
excessive, the barbarous use of the rod — and who is not? That 
is one thing, and making its occasional use evil and only evil, curs- 
ing both master and scholar, with a threefold curse, is another thing. 
There is quite a difference between the excessive use of a penalty 
in government, and an experiment to govern without any penalty at 
all. Should the Secretary of State, of Massachusetts, throw himself 
against all penalty in principle, and contend that it was only tolerated 
4 



42 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

on account of the incompetency of present rulers — and that when 
Massachusetts should choose the right sort of men, who could gov- 
ern without fines or imprisonment, then an end would come to 
" authority, force, fear, pain" — to fines, imprisonment, halters — 
it would be a lame defence for him, meekly to reply, that he was 
opposed to unmerciful punishments. 

Such I conceive to be your position. In the conversation with 
the Editor of the Puritan, you informed him, that he did not under- 
stand your views upon school discipline. Mr. AVoodbridge made 
you this fair offer — he said if you would write, in so many words, 
that you were in favor of the rod in schools, uvder cerlain circum- 
stances, and sign it, he would publish it in the Puritan, and all mis- 
apprehension would cease. You declined to do it ; nor would you 
allow him to say it for you. 

I object to your theory of school discipline, because of its theolog- 
ical character. You are opposed, you say, to " dogmatic theology," 
and to " sectarianism " in schools, and so am 1. On this account, 
I am opposed to your discipline theory. To get a foundation for your 
views, with a stroke of your pen you dispose of certain funda- 
mental truths which lie at the base of the scheme of redemption. 
You assume the native purity of children in opposition to the Bible, 
which asserts that our race are " by nature, children of wrath." 
On this "sectarian" assumption, you build your theory to abolish 
the rod. I advocate the use of the rod because God sanctions it in 
the Bible. He who made the moral nature of the child gave the 
Bible. He knew^ best what discipline and sanction the child needs. 
God says, " Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, (not 
in the masters,) but the rod of correction shall drive it far from 
him." — Prov. xxii., 15. Your theory denies this. You thus throw 
yourself across the Word of God. You become wise above what 
is written. 

You also settle one of the gravest questions in theology, when 
you affirm that punishment is simply for the good of the punished. 
That it has this in view, to some extent, I admit. That it fails of 
its aim when the refractory are not reformed, I deny. The model of 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS, 43 

human government is the Divine. Was the flood sent for the benefit 
of the anti-deluvians ? or will you arraign the judgment of God ? 
Were Sodom and Gommorah overwhelmed with the fiery flood for 
their own profit ? I mention these instances, in the chance that they 
be in that part of the Bible you do not reject ; if so, tliey will have force. 
In all cases in which the incorrigible are more hardened by punish- 
ment, must the bolt be drawn, the doors unbarred, and the vile and 
abandoned bs permitted to go forth and destroy, because punishment 
has done them no good ? If men are made better by penaltj^, well ; if 
not, the order, stability, and security around us, prove that righteous 
penalty is not in vain. So with the rod. I now leave my second 
position- 

YOU ARE OPPOSED TO RELIGION IN SCHOOLS. 

Wishing to do you full justice in this, as in other mattei-s, I 
requested you to state what you meant by the term " religious 
instruction," and what you recommended to be taught. You 
decline to answer mc. You decline to define a term you are using 
frequently. You are willing, you say, religion should be taught in 
schools; but what you mean by religion, you will not define. You 
xfer me to " the proper sources of information." I was simple 
nough to suppose that an application to yourself was the most 
proper of all sources. But it seems I am mistaken. Your writings 
come next ; to them I must refer. The Common School Journal 
you edit, as Secretary of the Board of Education. In it the Board 
speak occasionally ; you constantly. It professes to be the " Expo- 
nent of the Common School S3'Stem, Ei'erij page is subject to the 
rigid rule of the Editor ;" so says the publisher. [Vol. viii., p. 1.] 
You inform tne that I do not understand you to be opposed to reli- 
gious instruction in schools, " on any competent authority." I differ 
from you in opinion. You also say that you are " in favor of religious 
instruction (though you tell not what you mean) in our schools, to the 
extreme verge to which it can be carried without invading the rights 
of conscience, which are established by the laws of God, and 



44 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

guarantied to us by the Constitution of the State." More than this 
I do not ask ; more, I would not receive. Nor can you put your 
finger on the request, from any respectable class of the community, 
for more than this. I am prepared to show two things. 1. Neither 
the amount, nor kind of religious instruction allowed by the Con- 
stitution, is recommended. 2. In that which is presented, neither 
the rights of conscience, nor the Constitution of the State, are 
observed. 

The Constitution commands that " the principles of piety " 
shall be taught in schools. It is made the duty of masters to teach 
those " principles of piety," as much as it is their duly to teach Arith- 
metic or Grammar. Who is to judge what those principles of piety 
are ? How they shall be taught.^ By what sanctions they shall be 
enforced ^ Who shall decide what sectarianism is ? Who, speak- 
ing by authority, shall proclaim what we may teach, what we may 
not, of religion in schools ? You have already done this, by author- 
ity, or without it. Certain views that you entertain, you call reli- 
gion, or " piety." These you allow to be taught in schools. You 
enforce them in your lectures, reports, and Journal. Those which 
clash with your peculiar views, you reject as " dogmatic theology," 
or " sectarianism." By what authority do you settle those grave 
and important questions for every town and school district in Mas- 
sachusetts ? Flave the Board of Education decided these questions? 
If so, on what grounds? Have you, by virtue of your office, 
decided these points ? Certain I am, that practically they have 
been decided, and in that decision common truths have been ruled 
out, which are essential to a virtuous life, as well as to the salvation 
of the soul. You substitute, as far as you have influence, for the 
principles of piety allowed by the Constitution, nothing above, noth- 
ing more than Deism, bald and blank. This I am prepared to show 
from what you publish, from what you admit. 

The Principal of the Normal School, at West Newton, has issued 
a circular, in which he makes it the duty of his scholars, wind and 
weather permitting, to attend church a half day on the Sabbath, and do 
their walking for recreation on that day, in the morning and cvenmg. 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 45 

Is there no settlement by authority in the " State School," how 
often it is best to attend church. Is there no " sectarianism " in 
such a decision? President Everett, of Harvard University, makes 
it the duty of all his students to attend church both parts of the 
Sabbath. 

Under the caption, " What shall be my Sabbath Reading ? " your 
Journal teaches that we must read no books, except those of a liberal 
character. " Sermons and religious tracts " I must not read " if 
they make me selfish ;" i, e., inculcate the difference between the 
righteous and the wicked ; or make me " distrustful of my fellow 
man, or despairing of his advancement ; " i. e., that teach natural 
depravity ; such books are to be avoided on the Sabbath. I commend 
the good sense of the writer in making no allusion to the Bible, in 
such a category, as a book fit to be read upon the Sabbath. [Jour- 
nal, Vol. v., 246.] Is there no dogmatism here .'' 

You base your theory of no rod — no corporal punishment — on 
the native purity of the child, in opposition to his native depravity. 
The language of your journal is — and "every page is subject to 
your rigid rule " — " We cannot doubt that the capacity for all that 
is good and noble, exists in every child, and needs only to be roused 
and brought forth." [Vol. ii., 76.] 

Dr. Howe says, in your Journal of October 15, 1846, that 
" almost all children are as pure as Eve was." I might let this 
pass, with the rebuke in the Puritan, of October 29, from the pen of 
a member of the Board of Education, to whose Orthodoxy you re- 
fer me in vindication of yourself. But I cannot resist the expression 
of my grief, that those in the Perkins Institution for the Blind, who 
are shut out from the light of nature, should also be shut out from the 
light of grace. The statement of Dr. Howe is made in his report 
upon the case of Laura Bridgman. The whole report proves that 
that poor girl is seeking an atoning Savior, burdened with her sins, 
and asking for the Cross at which she may lay them down. She 
has, indeed, been told of " a man who lived a great many years 
ago, who always did right." But she has not, as the report proves, 
heard of Jesus the Savior, nor listened to that voice which says, 
4* 



46 



THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 



" Daughter, be of good clieer ; thy sins are forgiven thee." If the 
account in your Journal, of October 15, is a specimen of the re- 
ligious instruction given to the blind, religious parents, who have 
blind children to place under such tuition, may well weep over their 
double calamity — " for if the blind lead the blind, shall they not loth 
fall into the ditch?" 

Again, we read in your Journal, on the subject of school disci- 
pline, " That there is a jJ7~ina'p7e, thank God ! at the hot lorn of 
every heart, that is a desire to do right.'''' " Read the Sermon on 
the Mount," adds the writer, " every word was addressed to the 
natural conscience." Thus you teach the native purity of the 
heart. A little scum is on the surface, but it is all right, all sound 
at the bottom. What to us, then, is the Redemption of Christ, if 
men are not dead in sin.? or the gift of the Holy Ghost, to "shed 
abroad the love of God in the heart," if it is already there, and was 
always there } Or what necessity is there for a change of heart, in 
order to be saved, if the heart is already sound and good } You 
may say of no necessity — those who are influenced by German 
Transcendentalism, which begins by denying the Scriptui-e doctrine 
of human depravity, and ends by asserting the perfectability of man, 
without God — without grace — may also respond, of no necessity. 
But there is a religious pulsation in Massachusetts, yet. The peo- 
ple of this State have been content to believe the Bible as the basis 
of all the good we enjoy — they have been content to take their 
Republicanism, their system of free schools, and their religion, from 
that source which has made Massachusetts the glory of New Eng- 
land — and when they see into whose hands this mighty work of 
training the millions of our youth has fallen, they will be true to 
themselves. The yoke our fathers would not bear — the yoke of 
Infidelity, allied to State dogmatic theology, in any form — the 
children will not wear. 

But I have not yet done with the matter of proof. The Rev. E. 
D. Moore, editor of the Boston Recorder, received a call from you 
some time since. The object of your visit was, to induce him to 
correct certain expressions made in the Recorder, which you in- 



KELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 47 

formed him had done you injuslice. Mr. Moore certifies thus: 
That you assured him that you were willing to go as far as the 
Statute Book allowed, in teaching religion ; but, as that excluded 
everything sectarian, you must conform to it. The Editor says: 
" I asked Mr. Mann what was, in his view, se:;tarian — whether we 
might teach the existence of God ? " Yes. " May we inculcate 
the duties we owe to one God ? " Yes. " May we enforce those 
duties by an appeal to a future state of reward and punishment .'' " 
No ! ! " Such, in substance," adds Mr. Moore, " was the conver- 
sation. I thus learned that the Secretary of the Board of Education 
construed the laws as excluding from public schools all but Deism, 
and that he was unwilling that any thing better should be taught." 

The " principles of piety," as you illustrate and enforce them, 
exclude all that treats of human depravity — salvation by the blood 
of Jesus Christ — the atonement and the sanctions to a good life, 
drawn from the world to come. All these common truths, held by 
nine-tenths of all in this State, who profess any form of Christian 
faith, are ruled out of schools by the high authority of the Secretary 
of the Board of Education ; they are declared to be sectarian and 
unconstitutional. You have settled, by the authority of the Board, 
or without that authority, what piety is, according to the Statute. 
Your influence is derived from the Legislature ; through you, the 
people are told what they must receive, and be satisfied with, as a 
construction of the Constitution. All towns must hear — all dis- 
tricts obey ; else incur the penalty of forfeiture of their portion of 
the school money. 

Some, perhaps, would like to interpret the phrase, " Principles of 
piety," in the Constitution, for themselves. They have vague no- 
tions about " the rights of conscience, established by the laws of 
God." But you silence these clamors, by calling such persons " a 
small, but persistent and intolerant party, who are determined to 
force dogmatic theology into common schools, or scatter those 
schools to the winds;" and, among other things, they are guilty 
of " thrusting forioard private opinions.'''' [Re-Rejoinder, Boston 
Masters— 109.] 



48 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

Is it SO, then — that in the old Bay State, where civil freedom 
was cradled amid the storms of December, and where, after years 
of suffering, religious freedom was first asserted and understood — 
that any party, I care not how small it be, may not say, openly and 
boldly, what it believes the temporal and eternal interest of children 
demand, without the official rebuke of thrusting forward private 
opinions ? Are you so high, so strong in the popular will, that your- 
self, and those who think with you, alone express public opinion, 
and all else is the mere echo of a private mind ? And are we to 
be told, that when a gentleman expresses his opinion upon religious 
instruction in common schools, he is to be rebuked, as thrusting 
those opinions forward ? I have not so leai'ned the " rights of con- 
science," to which you make such frequent reference. My code of 
religious freedom is not so dogmatic as this. Does your position, as 
Secretary of the Board, give you a monopoly in this matter.? Sup- 
pose this " small, persistent, and intolerant party, are determined to 
force dogmatic theology into our schools " — comes not that act 
with as good a grace, as broad a constitutional right, as from your- 
self.^ When you assert the native purity of our race, and on that 
assumption build your theory of no punishments in schools, do you 
teach no sectarianism ? Do you not, with a dash of your pen, strike 
out a fundamental truth, received by all Christian sects, save 
one } If I may not teach native depravity in schools, because the 
Constitution forbids it, may you teach native holiness } If I may 
not teach the doctrine of Election, as explained in Rom. ix., may 
you so pervert and misapply I. John, iv., 18, as you have done, to 
sustain your view of no corporal punishment.? [Reply to Boston 
Masters, 133.] If I may not teach the strict Divinity of Jesus 
Christ, from John i., 18, may you so teach his humanity as to con- 
tradict the Word of Inspiration that he was " God manifest in the 
flesh " } If I may not warn children of future punishment, as I 
read Matt, xxv., may you teach that there is no punishment after 
death } 

It is proper to keep dogmatic theology out of school. Let it be 
kept out on both sides — the dogmatism of unbelief, as well as the 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 49 

dogmatism of faith. The law that closes my mouth, closes yours. 
The Constitution which forbids me to thrust foricard my private 
opinions, bids you keep yours to yourself. 

You have a method of disposing of this religious question, more 
summary than satisfactory. We ask that the principles of piety 
be taught in schools, and not the principles of infidelity — we ask 
that, blended with intellectual culture, our children shall be taught 
the fear of God, their accountability to him, and the great truth that 
lies at the base of warning and promise in the Bible, that life is a season 
of preparation ; that in the next, men will be rewarded according to 
their works. You respond, that we are " intolerant and per- 
sistent ;" that wc will have sectarianism, or " scatter our common 
schools to the winds." But who originated common schools ? The 
very class of men whom you, in your official capacity, denounce as 
intolerant ; those very dogmatists, men of the same principles of 
those whom you accuse, on account of those principles, of attempt- 
ing to scatter those schools to the wind. The clergy and religious 
men, in the hands of God, did this great work. This you allow in 
your Journal. [Vol. 11., 61.] The love they bore the souls of 
men, the desire they felt that all might read the Word of God, and 
be made wise unto salvation, led to the determination to give all 
classes an education, and to the sacrifice then necessary to carry 
out that purpose. But for the influence of those truths, which you 
reject as unfit to be taught to our children — truths in which the old 
Counnonwcahli of Massachusetts has stood firmly for more than two 
hundred years — neitlier you nor I might have been able to read. 
And yet to keep this system, which our fathers derived from the Bible, 
and from their love to the souls of men, on the base on which 
they planted it, and on which, like the State, it has outrode the storms 
and convulsions of two centuries, is to scatter it to the winds, in 
the opinion of the Secretary of the Board of Education. I do not 
think you can produce " any competent authority " to show that any 
class have urged or desire the introduction of sectarianism into com- 
mon schools. I would oppose such an effort with all the zeal you 
could brino; to such a task. 



50 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

If you say that teaching future retribution is sectarianism, I an- 
swer that you use terms to mislead. A truth common to all sects, 
is not, cannot be, sectarian. It is a truth common to Presbyterians 
and Baptists — Episcopalians and Methodists — the Orthodox and 
Unitarians — the Catholics and the more respectable portion of the 
Universalists. Enlightened Deism does not reject it. The heathen 
have embraced it, in all ages. I am informed, by Rev. Wm. M. 
Rogers, of this city, that in his recent visit to Egypt, cut deep in 
the rock, he found, engraved with a pen of iron, the evidence that 
the ancient Egyptians believed in future reward and punishment. 
Your "principles of piety," which you are willing should be taught 
to the children of Massachusetts, is below them all — Deism, Uni- 
versalism. Paganism. 

If it be true, however, that such a truth is sectarian, then was 
Abraham a sectarian, for he obeyed God in looking for a city — a 
heavenly one — in which to find his reward. Then was Moses a 
sectarian, for he chose afHiction whh the people of God, " having 
respect to the recompense of reward." All the ancient martyrs, 
who suffered for conscience's sake, " that they might obtain a better 
resurrection," were all sectarians. The apostles, who were upheld 
in their trials by the promise, " Your reward is in heaven," were 
sectarians and dogmatists. Even the blessed Redeemer himself 
was tainted with this dreadful evil, when, '■'■for the joy that teas set 
before him, he endured the Cross and despised the shame." 

If common, essential, vital truths, may not be taught without viola- 
tion of the Constitution of the Slate, and without teaching dogmatic 
theology, then His Excellency, Gov. Briggs, stands rebuked by his 
Secretary. In his excellent Proclamation for a day of Thanks- 
giving, he calls upon all the people in the State to give thanks to 
God, " for spiritual mercies that will make us wise unto salvation;" 
to remember our accountability to our Supreme Judge, and to know 
" our only hope of pardon and acceptance with Him, held out in the 
volume of Inspiration, is by repentance towards God, and faith in 
our Lord Jesus Christ." If you are right, the Governor is wrong. 
Is he to be included in the list of that " small, persistent, intolerant 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 51 

party," who " thrust forward their private opinions ? " In a recent 
address to the High School of Hopkinton, Gov. Briggs exhorted the 
pupils to educate "the iriimortal gem" which God had given them, 
^'■for both worlds^ Was he " dogmatic " in this ? Did he violate 
the Constitution which he has sworn to defend } And yet this is all 
we ask — enough of the Bible to make men wise to salvation. 

If you are right in your construction of the " principles of piety," 
then does the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, of this city, make an unreason- 
able request. In his letter, making a liberal donation to Amherst 
College, Mr. Lawrence says : " My motto for the country is — 
Universal Education, founded upon the morals draion from the 
Bihley Does Mr. Lawrence rest his hopes upon a construction of 
the Bible, that runs down its sanctions below Deism and Pagan- 
ism ? Is Mr. Lawrence a sectarian ? 

The Hon. Daniel Webster stands rebuked by your construction of 
the Constitution. In his masterly defence of the Bible and religion 
in schools, in the Girard case, he scattered your theory to the four 
winds of heaven, as chaff flies before the tempest. Is Mr. Webster 
a dogmatist or a sectarian? or is he unacquainted with the Con- 
stitution } 

I must repeat the remark made in my sermon — that an effort 
has been, and still is made, to get religion out of common schools. 
And what more effectual way is there, than to show tliat it is uncon- 
stitutional to teach it ? I regret to add, that in my opinion, you 
have not in good faith kept your pledge to keep sectarianism out of 
your system or out of school. It would not be in good faith, for a 
neutral paper to exclude articles in favor of a Tariff, on the ground 
of neutrality, and then admit column after column in favor of Free 
Trade. 

That you may understand that my views are not peculiar, upon 
the whole subject, I will select a single authority, whose respecta- 
bility you will not question. I quote from the Princeton Review, 
July, 1846 — pp. 438, 439 : 

" It is already difficult, in many places, to retain even the reading 
of the Scriptures in the public schools. The whole system is in the 



52 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND i 

hands of men of the world, in many of our States, and is avowedly 
secular. Now, with regard to this scheme, it may be remarked, 
that it is a novel and fearful experiment. The idea of giving an 
education to the cliildren of a country from which religion is to be 
excluded, we believe to be peculiar to the nineteenth century. 
Again, it is obvious that education without religion, is irreligious. 
It cannot be neutral, and in fact is not neutral. The effort to keep 
out religion from all the books and all the instructions, gives 
them of necessity an irreligious and infidel character. Again, 
the common school is the only place of education for a large class 
of our people. They have neither parental nor pastoral instruc- 
tion to supply its deficiency or correct its innuence. Again, this 
plan is so repugnant to the convictions of the better part of the 
community, that its introduction into our colleges has been stren- 
uously resisted. Where is the Christian parent who would send 
his son to a college from which religion was banished, in which 
there were no prayers, no preaching of the Gospel, no biblical 
instruction ? But if we shrink from such an ungodly mode of 
instruction for the few who enjoy the advantages of a classical 
education, why should we consent to the great mass of the chil- 
dren of the country being subjected to this system in the com- 
mon schools ? Under the plea and guise of liberty and equality, 
this system is, in fact, in the highest degree tyrannical. What 
right has the State, a majority of the people, or a mere clique, 
which in fact commonly control such matters, to say what shall 
be taught in schools which the people sustain ? What more 
right have they to say that no religion shall be taught, than they 
have to say that Popery shall be taught ? Or what right have 
the people in one part, to control the wishes and convictions of 
those of another part of a State, as to the education of their own 
children ? If the people of a particular district choose to have 
a school in which the Westminster or the Heidleberg catechism 
is taught, we cannot see on what principle of religious liberty 
the State has a right to interfere, and say it shall not be done ; if 
you teach your religion, you shall not draw your own money 
from the public fund ! This appears to us a strange doctrine in 



BELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 53 

a free country ; and yet it is, if we mistake not, the practical 
working of the popular systems in every part of tlie Union. 
We are not dispo ed to submit to any such dictation. W^e can- 
not see, with any patience, the whole school system of a State, 
with all its mighty influence, wielded by a Secretary of State, or 
School Commissioner, or by a clique of Unitarian or Infidel states- 
men, as the case may be. We regard this whole theory of a 
mere secular education in the common schools, enforced by tho 
penally of exclusion from the public funds and State patronage, 
as unjust and tyrannical, as well as infidel in its whole tendency. 
The people of each district have the right to make their schools 
as religious <is they please ; and if they cannot agree, they have 
the right severally of drawing their proper proportion of the public 
stock. 

" The conviction, we are persuaded, is fast taking possession of 
the minds of good people, that the common school system is 
rapidly assuming not a mere negative, but a positively anti-chris- 
tian character ; and that in self-defence, and in the discharge of 
their highest duty to God and their country, they must set them- 
selves against it, and adopt the system of parochial schools ; 
schools in which each church shall teach fully, fairly, and earnestly, 
what it believes to be the truth of God. This is the only 
method in which a religious education has hitherto ever been 
given to the mass of the people of any country, and the novel 
experiment of this age and country, is really an experiment to 
see what will be the result of bringing up the body of the peo- 
ple in ignorance of God and his word. For if religion is ban- 
ished from the common school, it will be excluded from the whole 
educational training of a large part of the population. ' It is an 
attempt to apply to the whole country, what Girard has pre- 
scribed for his college. Under these circumstances, the church of 
every denomination is called upon to do its duty, which is nothing 
more or less than to teach the people Christianity, and if this can- 
not otherwise be done thoroughly and eflfectually, as we are per- 
suaded it cannot, than by having a school in connection with 



54 THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 

every congregation, then it is the duty of the church to enter upon 
that plan, and prosecute it with all her energy." 

I feel under obligation to present you with the authority, in part, 
on which I made my original statement. I do not feel bound to 
make the case clear to your mind, nor to labor till you profess to be 
satisfied. When I have given such evidence as I think the case 
demands, and such as I am willing to present to the public, and on 
which 1 am willing to rest my position, my work is done. You ad- 
monish me, in your letter, that I shall be tried at the bar of Public 
Opinion. 1 have no fear of that tribunal. What I have said, in 
respect to the Bible, the rod, and religious instruction in schools, I 
have said from a high sense of duty, from a regard to the welfare 
of the young, and upon evidence that could not be gainsaycd. A 
review of this subject has only deepened my conviction ; it has 
frnpressed me with the fact, that the half has not been told. 



THE COMMON SCHOOL LIBRARY. 

To prove that I must err in what I say of a part of the School 
Library, you do not appeal to the books, but to the Board of Edu- 
cation. You can say nothing good of many members of that 
Board, to which I shall not respond. His Excellency, Gov. Briggs, 
I esteem as a model of a republican magistra ( — a pii'not and 
Christian. I can respond to all you say of the Rev. Drs. Humphrey 
and Sears — Rev. Mr. Hooker and Hon. S. C. Phillips. The 
Orthodoxy of Drs. Humphrey and Sears is there own defence. 
How it can be yours, I am not able to perceive, unless their Ortho- 
doxy can be imputed to you by some process with which I am not 
acquainted. Nor can I conceive how ihe fact that Gov. Briggs ia 
sound in the faith, alters the character of certain books in the 
library, which may have been approved before those gentlemen 
were placed on the Board. If the Board of Education are easy 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 5S 

and sat'sfied wilh what you call " reform," it would do little 
towards changing the character of your system or its results. 
That all are not so, I know and can affirm. 

The system you represent and define, is generally considered to 
be yours. The Board originated with you, in connection with 
another 'gentleman. (Reply, Boston Masters, p. 101.) In framing 
the laws you now execute, when in the Legislature of Massachusetts, 
you bore a conspicuous and prominent part. My opportunity to 
know in this matter, one of your earlier Journals records. (Vol. I., 
p. 345.) There has been a disposition, from the outset of this ex - 
perlment, to transcendentalize our schools — to let you have time 
and room to give your theory a fair trial. The character or silence 
of the Board, do little towards proving that your theory is sound or 
safe, or that those who now sustain you are satisfied. As an illus- 
tration, I will call your attention to a fact. On the 24th day of 
September, 1846, the School Committee of the city of Boston 
adopted, as a reading book in schools, a work styled, " Sequel to 
Popular Lessons, by Eliza Robbins." On that School Committee, 
there are several clergymen, of the Baptist, Episcopal, and Congre- 
gational denominations. Yet that Sequel contains as much irre- 
ligion as one would desire to have taught in a single book. 

On page 42, the authoress says that " the religion of Moses spoke 
f this life 07ihj " — that Moses who talked with God in the Mount, 

and received a law written by the finger of the living God he 

gave to the people a religion less perfect than the religion he left in 
Egypt. He fled by the power of the world to come which he saw by 
faith ; yet he spoke not of it to his people. And that people, 
whose chief advantage was this — that to "them were committed 
THE oracles of GOD," (Rom. iii., 2,) had less light than the Pagans, 
who were taught by future rewards and punishment. Jesus Christ 
expressly says: " Now that the dead are raised even Moses showed 
at the hush." (Luke xx., 36-38.) He also says, that both Moses 
and the prophets had so plainly taught the state of the dead, the 
woe of the lost, the way of escape, that should one go from the 
dead, he could add no persuasion not found in Moses. [Luke xvi.. 



56 THE BIBLE, THE KOD, AND 

27 - 3] .] Holy men, who read nothing but Moses and the prophets, 
saw by faith a city eternal in the heavens, embraced the blessing, and 
asserted that in this life they were only pilgrims and strangers. [Heb. 
xi., 13, 14, 39.] Yet our children are to be told that Christ and Paul 
were bolli mistaken ; and that men instructed by God had less infor- 
mation than Pagans ; for Moses taught nothing relating to u future 
life ! ! 

The authoress proceeds to expound the Decalogue. Take, as an 
example, her illustration of the fourth commandment. On page 
48 we read, that " the Sabbath is the day when men goto the house 
of God in company, and meet in pleasant icalks.'''' 

On page 62 it is affirmed that the resurrection of Christ is a 
" proof, as he rose from the grave, all men shall never die, hit have 
everlasting life.'''' Here is bald, blank, undisguised Universalism, 
taught by a most palpable perversion and alteration of the words of 
the Savior. The Divine teacher says " whoso liveth and believeth 
on me shall never die." [John xi.,26.] Such is the theology read 
day by day in the schools of Boston. The Old Testament is dis- 
posed of — the purposes of the Sabbath settled — and all men 
introduced into life eternal — by a vote of the School Committee of 
the city of Boston, on the 24th of September, 1846. 

In reference to the Library of the Board, I shall say but little in 
addition to what I have said in a former letter. The Editor of the 
"Philosophy of the Seasons," Vol. I., p. 11, admits that he has 
*' altered " the Sabbath papers, to suit the plan of the Board of 
Education. Those alterations make all the difference in the world. 
Much that goes out under your auspices as Sabbath reading, is as 
well entitled to that distinction as the Farmers' Almanack, and no 
more so. Read their Titles — "General Aspect of Winter" — 
" Discovery of Telescope and Microscope " — " Winter not monot- 
onous " — " Analogy of Nature " — " Domestic Affections of Man " 
— " Allusions to the Dew." Such subjects, divested of the reli- 
gious character given them by their author, altered to suit the irre- 
ligious, indicate the character of the Sabbath reading officially 
recommended. 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 57 

I commend to your attention an essay on Regeneration, Vol. II., 
193-198; an article on Natural Religion, Vol. I., 5-7. The 
mellowing of the author's remarks on Christ, the judge of the 
world, in a note by the Editor. Vol. III., 2-4. A resurrection to 
immortal glory of the dead, without distinction of character — 278. 
Blessing of affliction, applied to all the afflicted, without respect to 
character or improvement. Vol II., 248-252. The offer of the 
world to come, in which " no death or sin is," without that limit 
which the Bible makes. Vol. II. ,104. This is proof, in part, of 
what I affirm of the Library. 

Your reference to the abridgement of the life of Columbus, as a 
vindication of the alterations in the life of Branard, is not in point. 
Had President Edwards abridged his own work for your Board, it 
would have been analogous ; or had Mr. Irving suppressed certain 
facts in his history to suit your purpose, the cases would be parallel 
As it was, you were bound to publish Rev. Mr. Brainard's life, so that 
for all he was, the glory should have been given to the grace of God, 
or you should have let it alone. Omission, in such a case, is palpa- 
ble perversion. 

When I consider what we owe to an open Bible ; when I know 
that in the cabin of the May Flower, in Massachusetts Bay, guided 
by its spirit, our fathers originated the form of our government in the 
principle that majorities ought to govern ; when I see them, without 
a precedent in the wide world, breaking away from kings, nobles, 
hierarchies — asserting the sovereignty of God and the equality of 
man — the right of conscience and the power of self-government, 
with the Bible as the infallible, the only rule of faith and duty ; 
when I see its power upon education, philanthropy, stability and 
good order ; when 1 see that the Pilgrims, as soon as they unlearned 
the lessons of the old world, and felt the full power of the Bible 
upon their hearts, not only made sacred the rights of conscience, but 
raised dissenters of every grade to a level with themselves — I 
can find no language too strong to praise the instrumentality that is 
placing this Blessed Book in the hands and hearts of our children — 
no denunciation too severe for the men who would dim its light, 



58 



THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND 



impair its authority, or deprive cliildren of all its influence and 
power ; thus harming, irreparably, millions of our race, and striking 
out the corner stone of our Commonwealth's stability and defence. 

I will adopt the motto of the Hon. Abbott Lawrence — " A univer- 
sal education, founded upon the morals drawn from the Bible.'''' Give 
us this and an open Bible, and we will fear neither Pope, Pagan, 
nor Despot. 

If the good people of Massachusetts understand what experiments 
are going on with common schools, and choose to have it so — if 
they prefer infidelity to religion — the words of man to the word of 
God — if they desire to hazard positive good, for the vague 
promise of something better — if they resolve, under the specious 
name of reform, to unsettle all that is stable, tried and true — to 
leave the certain paths of safety, throw to the winds that *?/s/e« 
which blends the training of the intellect, with the culture of the 
heart — if they choose to cast away all that has made common 
schools our glory and defence — leave those institutions, based upon 
the deep foundations of God's Holy Word, for a gaudy mansion 
resting on the clouds, with Its summit towards the moon — th-'n, as 
good citizens, we must submit, and see the wave of ruin roll on from 
sire to son. 

It is no easy matter to remove a people from a system, tried, safe, 
beneficent: it is more diflScult to bring them back: more still, to 
save them from the curse. 

The startling increase of juvenile depravity seen in our State, is 
but the first fruits of that awful harvest that is to be gathered in 
from seeds which mystical men and pseudo-philanthropists have 
sown, as they have attempted to improve the Bible. 

But while we submit, our warning of the coming danger will 
be loud and constant. We still have liberty to gather our children 
out from such influences, and, amid the sanctions of home and of the 
church, teach them that love of the Bible and fear of God, which 
is denied them in common schools. 

You call our system of common schools "a glorious system." It 
is so. Its founders made it glorious. We, their children, wish to 



RELIGION, IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 59 

keep it as it is. We ask no change ; least of all, such as you prom- 
ise. The plain, hardy, manly piety of the New England Fathers, 
we wislv not exchanged for the mystical infidelity of the transcen- 
dental school. 

Say not that all who oppose your peculiar views, are unfriendly 
to improvements in schools ; any or all, that do nol impair the sys- 
tem, or start it from its deep foundations. As well say, that all who 
censure the conduct of Capt. Hoskins, in the wreck of the Great 
Britain, disparage the model of tiiat steamer, deride all improve- 
ment in naval archetecture, and wish to throw navigation back to 
the point it had reached in the lime of Ciiristopher Columbus. 

" Our glorious system of common schools," I would compare to 
the " steamer Great Britain ;" her model is splendid — her equip- 
ments of the first order — her destination hopeful. Safe hands are 
not at the tiller — the chart is unstudied — rash experiments are 
made — the open sea, the usual, the safe path, is abandoned for a 
shorter cut and a quicker trip. Her speed at the outset promised 
well; but when no one thought of danger — while all onboard 
were buoyant and joyous in tiie confident belief that their route was 
the safest and the best — the good ship, in all her glory, was hard 
and fast in Dundrum Bay — a splendid wreck on the Irish coast. 
Very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 

MATTHEW HALE SMITH. 



1 



LIBRARY OF 



CONGRESS 



019 793 376 Sf 




